Finding Melville’s Whale – Enter Ahab; to him, Stubb (Chapter 29)

Chapter 29 of Herman Melville’s classic – Moby Dick. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Visit this page for the complete collection to date: Finding Melville’s Whale.

Enter Ahab; to him, Stubb

Greybeards – for those who walk the deck at night,
the sky is the solitude, by Ahab,
fragmented, broken, scarred, is ill at ease.

Below, only death, the creaking coffin
of the Pequod’s hull, darkness. Ahab’s tomb
lies beneath the deck, and so he paces.

A peg is not a prop to pace at night.
Each step echoes against the planks, haunting
the dreams of men that are buried below.